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Part 1: The Sacred Flame of Vienna: Sustaining the Light of Unity Why is Vienna, why is this space, so very precious and so dear to our hearts? Because if it were not for Vienna, this light would not have spread further. This is the Tapas Thālī. Just as Alakhpurjī’s gufā was his tapasthalī, the place where he performed tapasyā, in the same way, Jādan is India, but this is where the flame, where that Agni, first ignited. All this light that resides within our hearts, all this unity, this beautiful family of mine—it is all because of Gurudev coming here. It is incredible to see in the videos how Gurudev’s beginning was, and then the different versions that followed. Whenever I come to Vienna, it always feels like being inside the father’s home—a little bit strict. When I am in Strilky, I am relaxed, thinking, "Yes, Ānand." But when I am here in Vienna, I find myself wondering from which corner Swāmījī is going to appear now. This is actually where, I think, he first told me to speak, two years ago. So this place is also special for me. Before we went to Strilky, we landed here, and that is when Swāmījī said, "Speak." After that, I started speaking. So it is special for me in the same sense as it is for Gurudev and for all of us. This Agni, this light—yesterday we had a meditation on that divine light, that light which Gurudev has lit in each and every one of our hearts. That light is still there and will always be there. Fifty years of the Mahāprabhujī Āśram have passed. Now we should think: how do we sustain the next fifty years? What can we do to keep that divine light lit? As Bhaktānandajī was saying, Gurudev told us, "I did my job, now you do." That does not mean he gave up on us, nor that he is not there. He is, but he went within. His whole life he was trying, as Bhaktānandajī said, and he still did not figure it out. So, his entire life he was removing that fog, removing the dust, the so many layers. And now, these are the last one or two layers which we must remove with our own viveka. That is what we are now beginning to unlock in Strilky, in the seminar. We are working on that. Hopefully, at least for me, I wish this is my last life, and I hope for all of you also. We have had enough, we were tired enough, we worked enough, and we found Gurudev. So that is it. What else do we need? In every life we were searching for him, and in this life we did not find him, but he found us. He found each and every one of our souls. He brought us together: no religion, no age, no anything. He was equal to each and every one of us. He loves each and every one of us in the same form as He loves Himself. And that is why He says, "My job is done, now you do." That is why now He is in silence because, what I believe, is health issues. Purījī, Siddha Purījī—the same saṃsāra where we are living in, the same rules and regulations apply. When you have things, when you have healing powers, when you can fix all of this, us, this beautiful family—we know how interesting creatures we are. I do not need to tell you that. So if he can deal with all of us, it is a tough job. And still, after that, he can fix each and every one of our problems. He can heal us, he can repair us, he can do everything. But those rules and that philosophy do not apply to ourselves. Jana Kalyāṇ, yesterday and many times we repeated this. What? Paradharma and Svadharma. Svadharma is the dharma which we do to fulfill our own desires, which we do to fulfill our own tṛṣṇā. Tṛṣṇā means thirst. The thirst of what? Then we should question ourselves: what are we thirsty for? Are we thirsty for wealth? Are we thirsty for happiness? Are we thirsty for love? Are we thirsty for compassion? First, we need to figure that out. But that thirst of bhakti, that thirst of Guru Kṛpā, that thirst He quenched. So that thirst, He satisfied us. But that longing for the Guru, the longing for seeing Him, the longing for being in His presence—that thirst will never go; that should always increase. Yet we need to understand that He created this for us in that same form. He created this for the next generation, which will come after us. He created this beautiful family to grow, to expand. Why? For the same reason each and every one of you came to Gurudev. Because we all have certain expectations, certain wishes, certain things within us. Many questions arise, many things arise which we want to fulfill, which we want to overcome. In the same way, Google Maps will help us to find the location, but not the right location. Because in Google Maps we type, and in India—I told you this experience last week, I think—Purī Jī, Siddha Purī Jī, Śrī Śrī... That is why He is the Guru. So if He knows, we trust Him and we let that rest on Him. Yesterday, we were singing what? We let all that stress, all that grief, all the negativity, we left it all on His shoulders. Why? Because He is the one who will take care of us. That is the responsibility, that is the duty of a Guru: to take care of his disciples, to take care of his children. See how much trouble we give him. I see parents sometimes find it really hard to take care of one kid or two kids. Here we have slightly more. And then each and every one of us comes: "Gurudev, I have this problem. Gurudev, I have that problem." Gurudev is healing this, and Gurudev is healing that. Gurujī, when do we give him time? So that is why now he is taking his time. But that does not mean that he is sleeping and doing nothing. Many times you go to his room in the middle of the night, and you will see him sitting like this, with closed eyes, on his bed. We put him to sleep, he goes to sleep, and then two hours later I wake up and look there and he is awake. At least he is not like Gurujī. I am happy because I heard many stories that the sevakas were sleeping with Gurujī and there was no sleep there. So I am happy that we get our sleep. But the thing is, when you wake up and you see that he is sitting with closed eyes, that means he is somewhere else. Because you pass him, walk past him, go to the toilet, and the eyes are still closed. But then we say, yes, he is sleeping, yes, we do not see him. Because before he was working in the exterior, and now he is working in the interior. Before, He did everything. He showed us everything, He gave us the right path. He showed us, and now He is watching if we are walking that road. The Guru’s job is not to enlighten us, not to do anything for us. His only job is to show us the right path, to show us, and as He said, step into the boat. And then it is His job. Now, how does He do it? It is with our kriyā. Kriyā means our work. If we do something, that is kriyā. If we eat, that is kriyā. Not our Kriyānaṣṭam, but in Hindi or in Sanskrit, kriyā means anything that we do. So it is our job to do. What did Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa say in the Bhagavad Gītā? Karma karo, phala kī cintā mata karo. Do not worry about the fruits, just do your karma. We have the right to decide what is our karma. We have the right to decide what our actions are going to be. Mahāprabhudīp Karatā Mahāprabhudīp Karatā He Kevalam. For example, the sun holds the radiance of so many lights; it holds and it can light up the whole world. But—there is always a but—it is too hot. The moon is cool and pleasant, but does not have enough light. The river, it is sweet, you can drink, but it is always flowing in a very strong flow. The seas, which are a little bit more, not the oceans, which have very turbulent waves—Purījī Prakāśa, Purījī Prakāśa... The only perfect thing is the relationship between the Guru and us. That is perfect; the rest, everything is temporary. But we run behind those temporary motives. We run behind these things because that gives us joy. Who likes peace? Not us. Why do we not like peace? Because with peace, our life will become boring, and who likes boringness? We do not want boringness, that is why we find troubles. How do we find trouble? By ourselves, because this mind is the one which is creating the problems, and this mind is the one which is removing and solving the problems. But the path, the solution, the way how to solve the problems is given by a master. In the same way that a mountaineer can tell how to climb the mountains, Gurudev is the one who walked that path and who is showing us that path. Purī Jī, Purī Jī... Purī Hanumānjī, when he took his first step to go and eat the sun, that was taken in South India, so I found a beautiful land there. I said, "Okay, we will make a beautiful, long, tall statue of Hanumānjī." But a few months back—not a few months, when I was in the Himālaya last month—I realized that if we can take care of what He created for us, that is more than enough. We do not need to create anything more. So I was like, "No more, Hanumānjī Mahārāj, you are a great man, you are a great man..." Be happy inside, be happy. But all mushroom is what we are focusing on, and all this that we have, I think now it is our job—not only my job, it is all of our jobs—to become one united family, to work as one united family, to progress further, to help each other. When you have one stick, and I give you one stick, you can easily break it. But if all the bamboo sticks are together, and I give them to you, you cannot break them. That is the power of unity. And that is the power of all of us: that when we are together, when we are united, we support one another. We help each other in each and every way possible. When we say we are a family, it means we remove that selfishness, we remove that "I," and we put "we." This is one thing, one good thing which I learned from Gurudev also. In his lectures, he never said "I" and "you." He always said "we." Why did he always say "we"? Not because we—I am happy. He said "we" because we are one beautiful family. And he always said, "Vasudeva Kuṭumbakam," that we all function as one unit. Not thinking about ourselves, not thinking about our individual centers, but thinking as the united yoga and daily life. Part 2: All in One, One in All That is what he said: all in one, one in all. We are all merged into that same one divine light, but that one divine light is now in each and every one of our hearts. And our job is to collect twenty-five new people every year, no? No, Swāmījī said how many? Twelve, no? How many? Eleven. Chalo, let’s do now Kali Yuga. In Kali Yuga everything is quicker, so let’s do twenty-two. So that is what he created, you know. This, and all the knowledge, our paramparā—Mahāprabhujī, Gurujī, Swāmījī—put into our bhajans. So that even if there is no one to speak, still you listen to the bhajans, you understand the meaning of the bhajans, and those bhajans are so deep. They will give you all this Advaita Vedānta, Vedānta, Bhagavad Gītā, Rāmāyaṇ—all the philosophy, everything is in our bhajans. We don’t need to read anything else. Everything that we can get—all the technology, all the ways of yoga, meditation, kriyā, jalanetī, dhautī, this is all yoga, and everything else, every single knowledge. How many lectures did we ever think, from 1970, what, ’71 till 2025—how many lectures did he give? Yes, we can repeat something once, twice, ten times, then new material, no? Same thing: last year I had one topic, this year it’s a different topic. So we have to change that. So, how many topics did Gurudev cover, and how many of that do we remember? Yesterday in Strilky I was asking, last year I was repeating these five values of every student. At least ten times I repeated last year. One person remembered yesterday. So, how many of us remember what Gurudev taught us? Yes, ten lectures, fifteen lectures we remember. But the deep meaning of it—not only the philosophy, not only the upper layer of it, but why he said certain things. When we understand that, when we understand the deeper meaning of things, what he meant. Only from last year. Last year, when I was travelling a lot with Gurudev, that state of little talking already started at that time. And he used to say certain things, and I used to think, like, what is he trying to say? I have zero clue. And then a few days back, I was just sitting and going through videos from last year when he was speaking—doesn’t matter, mixture of Hindi, Marwari, this, that. And then, because now this year we are practicing awareness and patience in Strilky, right? So then I also need to become more aware. So I was listening, and then I realized that last year, what used to feel like gibberish to me, I found out deeper meanings of things what he was trying to say to me last year. But it’s too late for that, but it doesn’t matter. At least we realized that maybe if we listen to his lecture ten times, I guarantee you, out of those ten times, seven times you will understand a different meaning than what he was trying to explain. Every one of us, when he was talking in his lectures, we all felt like he was talking to us personally. We all got the answers to our questions in his lectures. So that is the proof that you don’t need to go up to him and ask him for anything. Inside you ask the question, it will be answered either by you, by someone else, by Gurudev himself, anything. But do the effort of believing in that. You need to believe in yourself, only then can you believe in others. You need to love yourself, only then can you love others. Until and unless we accept ourselves, we do not believe in ourselves, and until then we won’t progress. Because we doubt ourselves so much, we say, "I am not worthy, I am not good enough, I am not this, I am not that." We are the best versions of ourselves that we can be. So stop listening to everyone else, stop listening to everything else, listen to yourself, listen to your inner self, what that wants, and the viveka will work which Gurudev taught us, and we will go on the right path. That’s why God gave us two ears. You put in what people say, process, waste food out. What you like, keep it in. But the problem is we listen to everyone; we feel that we need to listen. Yes, we should listen. Because in one way or another, we all can learn something from each other. But learn the good things. In the same way, when we eat food, our body, in our blood, goes only the nutrition; the waste comes out. In the same way, take that nutrition out of everyone. And as Bhaktānandjī was saying now, patience. We all should have awareness while speaking, being aware of what words are coming out of our mouth, and we need to be patient while listening. When someone is talking, be patient. And when you are talking, be aware of your words. That’s the only two things we are going to practice in this whole summer: awareness and patience. There are many topics which are coming up in this summer which are planned, but the goal is that we not achieve—I don’t know if we can achieve, I really hope that we do—but to move away from this external peace and to look within and find that inner peace within. Once we are blissful, once we are peaceful, once we are content with ourselves, with the things around us, we will be blissful. We will be happy, and that happiness is long-lasting, everlasting. But we need to have faith in Gurudev, we need to have faith in each other, because now it’s time for us to have faith in each other, to believe in each other, to support each other, and to move forward with each other. Not solo, it’s not a solo game. You can’t run the show solo. You go as one family. Everyone is heard, everyone is listened to, everyone’s problems are solved by themselves with the help of each other. But we need to focus on each other. Instead of focusing on what did this person say, what did that person say, why did he do this, why did she do this, who cares? None of our business why he or she did something. Our business is: what are we doing? If I point one finger at you, how many fingers are still pointing at me? Four, exactly. Four? Three. Two are pointing to you. But the point is, I didn’t talk to you. I don’t know. Yesterday I was singing, "Śrī Dīpade," and then my phone says, "Yes," because Siri, you know. So, the point is that we focus on our goals with the help of each other. If we don’t have each other, like when we see yoga class, when we see meditation, we sometimes, you know, a little bit peek here and there and we see, okay, that person has closed eyes, I should also close my eyes, no? So, we look around, we learn from each other, we motivate each other by each other. So, we need each other to survive, we need each other to move forward. And that’s why Gurudev said once, "Gādī may be sitting someone, doesn’t matter," but he many times said, "You all are my successors," right? So it doesn’t mean that only me, Gādī, doesn’t matter, but innerly we all are his successors, which means we all need to carry forward that divine light. It’s our all duty. If we have satsaṅgs, we all have that knowledge, just it’s hidden, it’s dusty. Remove the dust and spread it. Whatever you know, good, bad, who cares, talk, don’t be shy. That’s why now in Strilky, whoever is shy, I pick them: "Come, talk." And usually I don’t give prior notice, I just randomly pick them up, so learn from the best. But our job is: Hame haiṅ kāma satsaṅg se, jagat bakhe to bakhane de. Hame haiṅ kāma satsaṅg se, jagat bakhe to bakhane de. Hame hain kām satsaṅg, say our work should be in satsaṅg, that we are focused in satsaṅg, that we be in satsaṅg. So, that we don’t focus on other things in life. There are a hundred billion things that we can focus on, but Gurudev tells us that our work is to be focused in satsaṅg. Distractions will come and go, problems will come and go, everything will come and go. But one thing that will still always bring us together—Swāmījī, Śrī Amitābha Purī Jī, Śrī Amitābha Purī Jī—that is satsaṅg. And if we are sitting at home, if we are sitting at a coffee shop, we are laughing, we are joking, all good. But if there is no gossip, if there are not any other things, if there is purity in our thoughts, purity in our mind, purity in our heart, love and compassion in our heart, then we can have everywhere satsaṅg. Mātā Kāra Mohaṭu. Om Hali Kapya Das Ji Ki Jai. Moha, moha is the biggest problem. Moha is attachment. We get attached very easily. We get attached to objects, we get attached to living human beings, we get attached to everything. But when we let go of those attachments, we feel much more at peace, we feel much more in happiness. Why? Because we let go of those things which are blocking us, those things which are holding us back. And those things which hold us back are mostly our own things, our own problems, our own attachments. And once we let go of those, then we are slowly, slowly on the right path towards achieving that inner peace, towards fulfilling and walking one step ahead in our journey. So, attachment is good and is bad. Because when attachment is there, expectations come. Expectations not fulfilled, anger, envy, jealousy come. So when we let go, let it go, let it go. So we let go of those things which are not good for us. It may be many things. The only thing we should not let go is our mālā. Everything else in the world is perishable. We came with nothing, we shall go with nothing. Be your vegetables. Very beautiful. Thank you, Hario. Vegetables clear my mind, you see. Thank you, Harīo. I think we are also getting late, and we will talk further in Strilky. Now let’s have prayer, and, oh yeah, eating. I forget about eating, and that’s what I love. All the people who travel with me, they love this thing about me. I don’t eat, and I don’t let them eat. Same thing. Because I can, sometimes I don’t eat for a few days, no problem. But then they, they need food. Because bhūkhe peṭa na hove bhajana gopāla, which means even with an empty stomach, we can’t eat too many. We are all sitting here, but mentally we are all somewhere else. So we will talk in Strilky when we are all more present. Oṃ Śalāpurjī Mahādeva Kī Jai. Devapuruṣa Mahādeva Kī Jai. Hindūdharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṃswāmī Śrī Mādhavānand Purī Jī, Satguru Dev Bhagavān Kī Jai. Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvar Paramahaṃswāmī Maheśvarānand Purī Jī, Guru Dev Kī Jai.